NASA invited to march in Obama inaugural parade

NASA, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, also was a featured participant at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival on Independence Day week.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee said that “members of NASA will join representatives from across the country and our Armed Forces in the historic parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.”

NASA employees are very interested in Obama’s plans for the space agency, which has been caught in the middle of a budget debate in recent years between the Bush administration, which has favored limited spending for the agency, and members of Congress, who have pushed for greatly increased spending. But that debate will wait until the parade passes by.